Paul Sloane

Last Updated on 1 April 2020 by Jan-Paul Steggerda

Paul Sloane is the author of over 20 books on lateral puzzles, creative problem-solving and lateral leadership.

Over 2 million copies of his books have been sold. He has been described in the Independent as the ‘King of Lateral Thinking Puzzles.’ In his book, The Leader’s guide to Lateral Thinking Skills, he explains how you can use the principles of lateral leadership to inspire your people to achieve breakthrough solutions and radical innovations. His articles on innovation and leadership have appeared in leading business publications.

His book A guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing: Advice from Leading Experts (2011) edited by Paul covers the definition of open innovation, how to manage virtual teams and co-create with customers, how to overcome legal and IP issues and common mistakes and pitfalls to avoid.

Paul took a first in Engineering at Cambridge. He joined IBM where he came top of Sales School. He was part of the team that launched the IBM PC in the UK. He went on to be MD of the database leaders, Ashton-Tate. He became VP International for MathSoft Inc. and CEO of Monactive Ltd. He is the founder of Destination-Innovation, a consultancy that helps improve innovation.

His presentations offer a unique blend of puzzling challenges, humour and hard-hitting business messages. He facilitates meetings, leads workshops and gives after-dinner talks and keynote addresses. His workshops provide practical techniques to improve leadership and innovation.

Working with CEOs is where Paul believes he can have the most influence as they can create or destroy a culture of innovation with their words and actions. He gives practical tools and relevant examples to show how CEO’s can set the vision, build the culture and establish the processes to embed innovation in their organisations. His clients to date have included AA, American Express, ARM, BT, Cendant, DWP, EADS, Lloyds of London, Motorola, Reckitt Benckiser, Shell and 3M.

Paul believes innovation is too important to be left to chance. He provides highly entertaining and provocative presentations that both challenge peoples working assumptions and inspire audiences to take a fresh view in approaching management and leadership issues.